


Cluttered

by a_quick_drink



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Fluff, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_quick_drink/pseuds/a_quick_drink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ty's been squirreling away bottle caps for so long he's not even sure why he does it anymore. What he does know is that it's finally time to let them go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cluttered

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to amirosebooks for helping me with this! Characters belong to Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban.

Ty scooped up another handful of bottle caps from the box in front of him and pushed the caps around his palm with his finger. Three more Guinness, two Corona-- _who the hell had made him drink Corona?_ \--and one he didn't recognize the logo for. He dropped them into their respective piles and reached for another handful.

Earlier that morning Zane had slipped out of bed to prepare for his routine run. Dimly aware of the affectionate pat to his flank, Ty had mumbled a goodbye and flopped over to burrow under the other pillow. He needed the weekend to sleep off the trauma of having spent the week slogging through the stack of paperwork he'd been deflecting for weeks. If he never saw another one of those pink forms it’d be too soon.

By the time the front door clicked shut, Ty was wide awake. At a loss for what to do for the next couple of hours, he settled on scrounging up an easy breakfast and a quick shower. As he’d pulled on his jeans, a forgotten bottle cap in one of the pockets found its way to the floor, reminding him of something else he'd been avoiding.

So here he sat on the floor of the spare bedroom, propped up against the bed, going through what he guessed to be hundreds of bottle caps. The better part of an hour had been spent sifting through the collection, one handful at a time, creating a grid of tidy little piles sorted alphabetically by brand. An easy enough task if his mind would quit chasing hazy snippets of memories.

One more handful.   

He didn't know why he kept them, he just...did.

It started with a bottle cap from some crazy Middle Eastern yogurt soda and was downhill ever since. He began pocketing the more unique ones on occasion, but compulsion soon became habit. When the guys started giving him shit about it, he’d hidden the habit; turned it into a game. One minute a bottle cap would be rolling between his fingers, the next it was gone. If anybody noticed, they either didn’t care or knew better than to mention it.

Just a harmless little hobby gone somewhat awry, that was all. Not that he considered himself a collector. Of memories, maybe.

Compulsion had turned him into a booze-addled magpie. His shiny little bits of junk, hoarded in a cardboard box in the back of the guest room closet. Nothing to see until a few strays lying around the house jogged his memory: left on counters, stashed in drawers he always meant to clean out, forgotten in pockets. Thanks to a certain pair of furry freeloaders he'd found one such cap--fluted side up, of course--by stepping on it barefoot.

The distinguished few were kept in a box on the dresser, safely tucked alongside scuffed dog tags and a ruined wedding band soon to be reborn. Embellished with dates written in his tight script, these caps were paltry tokens linking to the memories he knew by heart. Talismans with which he could once more taste the desert sand in his mouth, feel the reassuring burst of cool air that spoke of freedom, the heartache and worry over dying without so much as a goodbye.

Ty held up yet another Guinness cap between his fingers. _Why the rest?_

Too much clutter set him on edge, sparking the kind of nervous energy that Zane joked could be used to power a third world nation. While the box itself didn’t take up much space, it was only one of countless others. He’d been known to excuse the collecting as preparation, although for what he didn’t know. The zombies of Zane’s imagination?  Sure, let the hordes cut their feet on the damn things.

Ty snorted and pushed the box away.

He knew exactly why he kept the caps: just his peculiar way of condensing his life. Tangible debris that brought him back whenever he started losing himself in the person he needed to be. They knew his worst secrets and fears yet never judged, would never leave until he made that decision for them. When everything else came crashing down around him, there they'd be. They were easy and safe.

Not that he needed easy. No, what he needed was someone to keep him warm at night, to find him in the darkness and guide him back to reality when he was lost in the nightmares.

He needed Zane.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Ty scrambled to pull all the neat piles into a larger one, using both hands to frantically shovel the caps back into the box. He spared the contents a last glance and wove the mangled cardboard flaps back together. As tempting as the thought of tossing it back into the closet was, he knew better.

  
A smile curled across Ty’s lips as he touched the pendant at the base of his throat. No more easy. His home was already open, now it was time to completely open his heart.


End file.
